The present invention relates to a hydraulic oil supply structure and a vehicle drive apparatus provided with a hydraulic oil supply structure.
Therein exists a hydraulic oil supply structure that is used in a automatic transmission. Here, examples of an oil pump include a mechanical oil pump that works by obtaining a rotational drive power from a rotational drive shaft that is provided in the automatic transmission or an electrical oil pump that works by receiving a supply of electrical power from a battery. Hydraulic oil that is output by these oil pumps is fed to a hydraulic pressure control apparatus and is used in an automatic transmission for a variety of necessary purposes. A typical use is the lubrication of the gear train that is provided in the automatic transmission, the supplying of the operating oil to the friction engaging mechanism, and the supplying of cancel oil.
An example of a hydraulic control apparatus that has been proposed is one that has a structure provided with an upper valve body and a lower valve body, and having a separating plate interposed therebetween (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-S61-52448 and Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-2005-344938). In this type of hydraulic control apparatus, provided that the separating plate that can be manufactured by stamping a plate body and the respective valve bodies of the upper and lower valve bodies, which are suitably defined in order to form a desired hydraulic circuit, it is possible to obtain multi-purpose hydraulic control circuits comparatively easily.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-S61-52448 discloses an automatic transmission for a 4-wheel drive vehicle, and excluding the intake system for the mechanical oil pump, the ends of the upper and lower valve bodies on the vehicle front side are flush in the axial direction of the drive shaft.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-2005-344938 is related to an automatic transmission having an assist hydraulic unit attached, and in this example, the end of the lower valve body on the vehicle front side projects further to the front than the end of the upper valve body on the vehicle front side.
Because this prior art relates to automatic transmissions, the distance from the oil pump, which is for obtaining hydraulic oil, to the end of the hydraulic control apparatus on the oil pump side is comparatively short.